Full-Time
Associate Director, Community Training

Job Description

Department: Community Training

Division: Programs

Location: Brooklyn, NY

Reports To: Director, Community Training

Status: Full-time, Regular

About StoryCorps:

StoryCorps was founded in 2003 with a mission to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. Over the past 14 years, we have provided an estimated 400,000 people from across the U.S. with powerful opportunities to record interviews about their lives, pass wisdom from one generation to the next, and leave a legacy for future generations in our archive at the Library of Congress. Select interviews are edited for weekly broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition and/or inclusion in our animations and podcasts. Together, these reach a broad national audience of tens-of-millions on public and digital media. All StoryCorps activities, from the delivery of our interview service, to our archive, to the creation and distribution of our produced content, are carried out with an unwavering commitment to excellence and the inclusion of underrepresented populations. Over the years, we have partnered with thousands of community organizations from across the country to provide our interview service to their constituents. By collection, preserving, and broadly disseminating authentic voices from diverse participants across the U.S., StoryCorps promotes a deeper understanding – both historic and contemporary – of the many communities that constitute our nation. Our work has been widely recognized with several George Foster Peabody Awards, A MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, the 2015 TED Prize, and a 2016 Emmy award for our animation, “Traffic Stop.”

Position Overview:

The Community Training Department supports StoryCorps’ mission, reach, and impact by providing organizations with the resources and training to start and sustain their own interview collection and documentation projects. This department creates and fosters the independent and autonomous use of interviewing, recording and archiving by community organizations and institutions so as to enable widespread adoption of StoryCorps’ approaches. Community Training also oversees the delivery of StoryCorps Legacy, a program to record the stories of people affected by serious illness, as well as a childhood bereavement project aimed at providing children who have lost a parent, sibling or loved one the opportunity to share their stories.

The Associate Director, Community Training (AD), conceives, designs, negotiates, and implements training services while meeting Community Training’s goals and grant deliverables. The AD cultivates relationships with potential new partners and sustains relationships and provision of quality services to existing partners. The ideal candidate will be comfortable working in diverse institutional environments, as partners may vary from nonprofits and libraries, to corporate clients through a fee-for-service partnership, to healthcare organizations and/or government organizations that provide services such as housing, income maintenance and support, transitional services for individuals who are being re-acclimated to their homes after rehabilitation, etc.

Informed by the capacities and circumstances of community organizations, the AD adapts existing training or designs customized training as is needed. As the services of Community Training are available nationally, the Associate Director is expected to provide training services across the country and promote the training services through conferences and workshops. Internally, the AD collaborates with teams at StoryCorps including External Relations and Finance & Administration to ensure that there is organizational awareness of Community Training and its work products, and to raise the profile of Community Training among its key constituencies and supporters.

The AD reports to the Director, Community Training and works closely with the Program Specialist, Community Training, who supports the department’s operations. The AD operates with considerable autonomy in the context of their interactions with partners, including, for example, drafting proposals. The AD collaborates closely with a variety of StoryCorps departments to ensure effective promotion, funding, and delivery of training-based services to communities.

StoryCorps records, shares, and preserves stories from a diverse range of American voices – from our Griot Initiative to preserve stories of African Americans, to our Historias Initiative to collect the experiences of Latinos. We also seek to recruit and develop a staff whose diversity matches the diversity of the communities we serve, and we strongly encourage applications from people of color and the LGBTQ community. Candidates with work experience in diverse communities are also strongly encouraged to apply.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

Partner Engagement and Support (~40%)

Develop and execute an outreach plan for Community Training including researching, engaging, and collaborating with organizations to meet program goals and deliverables

Oversee response to inquiries regarding availability of StoryCorps training-based services (either online or in-person) and cultivate and sustain relationships with new and potential partners

Cultivate and sustain mutually beneficial relationships with new and potential partners

Support partners in their efforts to produce recorded content through freelancers and radio stations

Training and Service Delivery (~20%)

Travel regularly and nationwide for the purposes of delivering orientations and training to healthcare organizations, libraries, and public service institutions

Coordinate and conduct online training to individuals and partner organizations.

Ensure that all partner StoryKit interviews and associated materials are databased and provided to participants expeditiously

Support partner use of the StoryCorps app and ensure training and materials reflect the most recent app requirements and instructions

Creation and Development of Trainings (~10%)

Support development and continued improvement of online training platform and digitization of current StoryCorps training

Continuously improve training curricula and related systems and services to enhance impact on partners and communities

Promotion and Funding Support (~20%)

Attend conferences and conduct presentations nationally in order to promote Community Training services and showcase partnership results

Participate in meetings and follow up with potential and current funders

Produce reports for Community Training funders and Advisors

Contribute to the development of proposals for large scale projects with Institutional Giving, Corporate Sponsorship and Major Donors and partnerships in collaboration with Custom Services

Under the direction of the Director, Community Training, and the Custom Services and Finance Departments conduct business research, set partnership fees and develop projections

Miscellaneous Duties (~10%)

Provide assistance in training StoryCorps staff and interns involved in the Community Training

Provide supervision to interns involved in Community Training

Collaborate with departments within Programs, Digital & Technical Innovation, External Relations, and Finance & Administration to assure the development, improvement, and sustainability of StoryCorps services and systems (including, but not limited to the Public Archive and the StoryCorps app)

Perform additional duties to support the Community Training Department and the Programs Division, as necessary and as assigned

Cultural competence and the ability to work successfully with diverse groups of people

Preferred:

Ability to communicate clearly in Spanish and English, both orally and in writing

To apply, please send your cover letter and resume to employment@storycorps.org and include your last name and the position title in the subject line: for example, “Jones – Associate Director, Community Training” Include your cover letter and resume as attachments titled “YourNameLetter” and “YourNameResume.” In your cover letter, please tell us how you found out about this opportunity and whether you have applied for a position at StoryCorps in the past.

StoryCorps seeks to hire staff who reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. All positions at StoryCorps are filled without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, HIV/AIDS status, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. All are encouraged to apply.